03 Feb Ditch your ‘purpose anxiety’
Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s a new year and a new platform and look. From here on, I’m using Substack to send you The Brand Article. It’s a better platform to publish my work on and hopefully a better experience for you.
So, let’s go.
The start of 2025 also means a fresh slate of questions about purpose. Do you have one? Are you in the process of finding one? Does yours provide one for others? And while purpose is meant to motivate, it often feels not good enough.
Someone else who finds the whole purpose thing perplexing is author Elizabeth Gilbert. So much so, she coined the term “purpose anxiety”. She discusses the idea on a podcast with Tim Ferris.
“The story that most of us were taught was some variation of, each of you is born with one unique offering, a special spark that is only yours and only you can deliver on that thing. It’s your job to find what that one thing is that only you can do.
Meanwhile there’s almost 8 billion people on the planet so already here’s some pressure because it’s gotta be something no one else can do. Which is gonna be unlikely because there’s a lot of us.
And you should find out what that is very young, and then you should become the master of that thing. And then you should devote the ten thousand hours. And way before you’re out of adolescence you should already be pouring yourself into your purpose that you’re here to serve.
Then you should become the very best at that thing. And it’s not enough to become the best at that thing you’ve got to monetise it. And it’s not enough to monetise it. You also have to create opportunities for others and make sure they’re being served by this purpose.
And if all of this sounds exhausting you’re not off the hook when you die. Because you must leave a legacy and you must change the world. So no pressure.”
Let’s tackle a few points Gilbert makes. That you should find your purpose early on, and that it should be unique and ‘change the world’.
And while Gilbert’s talking about individuals. The same burdens apply to organisations. Working with start-ups, generational family-owned businesses and large enterprises I’ve never seen purpose land fully formed. It shows up bit by bit. And usually in the rear-view mirror.
Which can look like…
People founding the organisation see something. A gap, an opportunity, a problem to solve and produce to make. So they jump in. Maybe solo or with a few others. It grows, changing shape as what’s needed becomes more evident. Maybe with a few right turns along the way. Some push and pull. A bit of back-tracking.
With time and through increments of doing, the path gets clearer. Then, some years down the road, they can name the most important thing. The purpose.
Still, the pressure to coin something that’s both one of a kind and will help ‘change the world’ can feel crushing. But adding a tweak in how to think about purpose can unlock a more attainable meaning on both fronts.
Change “Be best in the world” to be best in ‘your’ world. Whether that’s a town, region, online community or sector. Taking a ‘local’ view helps keep judgement at bay and shifts you away from others doing similar stuff somewhere else.
Even considering the butterfly effect and unknown ripples of impact, very, very few ever change ‘the’ world let alone in a way no one else is doing. And those who do often drag along a raft of unintended or uncared about side-effects.
Down-shifting what you aspire to doesn’t mean settling for less. Questioning the scale of purpose doesn’t discount its value in choosing what to do and not to do or the impact you can have. A modest purpose can still generate meaningful results for those who share your local.
It will still sit alongside values as the foundation of identity and help you make choices and promises you can keep. Which all land in the brand as a store of value you can use to do more work.
The only people your purpose needs to inspire are those working towards it. You, and if you’re in an organisation, your co-workers. Ignore what others think. Even better, don’t share it. Let your work demonstrate what’s most important.
Approaching purpose in this way removes the weight of judgement. So you can ditch the anxiety and double down on the unheroic work of doing your thing. Whatever that thing is.
Thanks for reading.